


House of M

by LuthienLuinwe



Category: Marvel, X-Men - All Media Types, X-Men Evolution
Genre: Bad Mental Institution, Death in Childbirth, Deception, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Gen, Magneto is a Bad Parent, Mental Institutions, Minor Character Death, Mutant Experimentation, Mutant Hate, Origin Story, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Pietro Maximoff Needs a Hug, Running Away, Wanda Maximoff Needs a Hug, Xenophobia, mention of child death
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-03
Updated: 2020-05-25
Packaged: 2020-06-03 11:10:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,968
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19462762
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LuthienLuinwe/pseuds/LuthienLuinwe
Summary: Before they were Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch, they were Pietro and Wanda Maximoff. Follow their story from the beginning, through X-Men: Evolution, and beyond.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> WARNING
> 
> An infant death is mentioned (repeatedly) in this chapter.
> 
> There is character death in this chapter.

**Magda**

They had agreed to have no children after Anya. Why would they? When would they have the time?  


Anya had not been planned. Had been a surprise, though a welcomed one. Magda had never seen Max as happy as he had been when she had told him the news. She would never forget how his face had lit up. How he had pulled her into a tight embrace. How they had planned their future together. Bright and happy and full of love and life. They would have many children together. They would raise them to be perfect ladies and gentlemen.

But in the end, Anya had lived hours, not years. And Magda could not help but think that there was no punishment on this earth more cruel than a parent having to bury their child. It was against the very order of things.

And just as quickly as Max had become caring, just as quickly as he had discussed their future together, he had shut himself away from her. Away from everyone. Devoted himself to his cause that, though she would never voice the opinion out loud, would never succeed.

People would always be afraid of those different from themselves. It had been that way since the beginning of time.

She never knew how to raise the subject.

Even years after the event, the emotions were too raw and the pain was still there, barely blunted by the passage of time.

She wondered how anyone could label her love as emotionless. Cold.

The Max she knew was full of nothing but emotion and pain, all hidden behind a facade of confidence. Arrogance. Drive. But something in him had died alongside their daughter. Something she was not sure could ever be revived.

She heard the door to their small home creak open and turned to face it. Max entered through the threshold, hanging his hat and coat on the rack by the door. "I'm home," he spoke, voice low and even. A bad day, then. Though nothing she could blame him for. The anniversary was fast approaching, and the pain of the memory of Anya, so small and delicate, with it.

"How was work?" Magda asked. A safe conversation. Easy. No emotions involved. Nothing to fire either of them up. There had been a time when they would discuss anything with one another. Love. Hate. Life. Death. Joy. Pain. How easily they had fallen into a routine of meaningless small talk, conversations that held no weight.

"Fine," he responded and made his way to the dining room, sitting down at the head of a large table. A large table they had had built to accommodate a large family. Children. Grandchildren, God willing. A large table that would never hold anyone but the two of them. Or so she had thought until earlier that week, when she had awoken sick to her stomach. She had thought it food poisoning at first. But food poisoning had never lasted that long.

"Marya came by this morning," she commented, trying to keep the conversation moving. Anything to keep him speaking. Anything to believe that he was still her Max, somewhere buried underneath the hurt and the anger and the pain.

Their paths had crossed with Marya and Django Maximoff when they had moved to the Ukraine. Proximity had led Marya and Magda to become close friends. Their friendship had forced Max and Django to interact. And now, years later, rarely a day passed when Marya and Magda did not visit with one another. Even if they had nothing to speak about. Especially if they had nothing to speak about.

"Don't you two ever tire of one another?" Max asked, though his tone was light. Magda thought she could even see a ghost of a smile across his face, if only for a fraction of a second.

"I doubt it," she answered, smiling as she sat across from her husband. It had been Marya who had suspected her condition. Marya who had convinced her to share the news with Max, even if it would cause pain.

He had been so thrilled when she had told him the first time.

She could only hope he would experience the same joy again.

"Something troubles you," he spoke, looking into her eyes. A statement, not a question. Sometimes she wondered if he could read minds after all.

She took a shaky breath before standing, moving beside Max and gently placing his hand on her stomach, covering it with her own. She tried to focus on her breathing, on keeping calm. She would have made a liar of herself if she said she were not nervous about the reaction her husband might have.

She would make a liar of herself if she said she did not fear how he could turn from sweet and gentle to angry and cold in a fraction of a second.

She watched as he furrowed his eyebrows in confusion, glancing between their hands and her eyes before finally looking up at her for good. "You're certain?" he asked, voice showing the first hint of emotion she had heard in it since Anya had died. A hint of hope in his tone. Hope she had thought to be long dead.

She nodded slightly and watched as her husband's face changed from concern to overjoyed. As he rose to his feet and pulled her into a tight embrace. She smiled as he spoke words of happiness and praise to her, almost at a babble, as if he were unsure this were happening. Unsure that this was real. Afraid to believe this was real. That they had been given a second chance.

"But what will we do?" he asked as he pulled away from her, and she frowned in response. "People are beginning to talk. To suspect I am not quite who I say that I am. What I say that I am..."

Magda shut her eyes and took a breath before taking Max's hands in her own and squeezing them gently. _Let them talk,_ she wanted to say, but knew it would do no good. People would talk and draw conclusions. If they were lucky, they would be ignored. If they were unlucky...

They had vowed they would never be persecuted again. It was not worth the risk to stay and wait and hope that they would be left alone.

"Marya and Django have been considering a move for some time now," she commented and sat at her husband's side. "I believe they have decided on Transia. We could follow them there. It is rumored they are more... Open to people with... Abilities."

She watched as Max closed his eyes, his face pensive. It was not the first thing they had done with little thought. She sincerely doubted it would be the last. He nodded slowly before opening his eyes once more. "Very well," he spoke, the excitement and joy in his voice once more replaced with the cold directness it had taken on over the past years. "We will leave at the end of the week."

Magda nodded and smiled softly. Perhaps the move would be good. A new start with a new home and a new family. A silence fell over them, though a comfortable one. The first comfortable silence that had encompassed them in years. A silence full of promises of hopes and new beginnings, and, perhaps, a future that would bring joy instead of the pain they had grown so accustomed to.

"I think Wanda for a girl and Pietro for a boy," she spoke as they finished their meal and cleared the table. "Good, solid names he or she can grow with."

"They're perfect," Max smiled and planted a kiss to Magda's forehead. Soft. Gentle in a way she rarely saw him. In a way he had only ever reserved for her. "Just like our son or daughter will be."

* * *

The pregnancy, by all accounts, had gone smoothly, even with the stress of the move to the base of Mount Wungadore in Transia. She glowed, according to all who saw her, and for months she planned her life with Magnus and their son or daughter, who was due any day. They had already prepared a bassinet in their room, and new friends had given gifts and wishes of well-being.

Magda had busied herself with preparing for the child. But Max... Max had withdrawn back into himself. He devoted every spare minute he had to his cause, and while Magda admired his drive, she feared it was destroying him. That it was destroying them. The time he spent away from home was beginning to outnumber the time he spent at home, and she was worried that she was beginning to lose him, though she would never let it show. Their love was strong. She was sure of it. This too would pass and everything would be fine. Everything had to be fine.

A troubled feeling had formed inside her halfway through her second trimester. She had written it off as fear, nerves that she could not blame herself for. What if this ended the same way it had the first time around? No. It could not happen. She was not sure she could survive living through that hell a second time.

But as the weeks past, the nerves grew deeper. Only this time it was not her child she saw dying. It was herself.

Max had written off her fears as nerves. All parents experienced nervousness, he had said. She was overthinking and needed to relax. It was bad for the baby to worry... _Babies,_ she had to remind herself.

What a shock it had been to learn she was not carrying one child, but two. A boy and a girl. Her sweet Wanda and Pietro who she loved before she had even met.

By some stroke of luck, Max had been home when the contractions had started. But it was early. Far too early. And she hoped and prayed that it was a false alarm, her body playing tricks on her. But they grew closer together, and finally Max had insisted upon taking her to Bova. Marya and Django had not been far behind.

She labored for twenty-one hours when the first child arrived, a little girl so tiny she could fit in the palm of Max's hand. Tiny, but with a head of dark hair and bright eyes and a face like Magda's own. Tiny but full of fight and power. "Wanda," she had breathed when Bova had presented the child to her.

The boy had come shortly after. Just as tiny. Silver-haired and blue-eyed like his father. "Pietro," she named the boy and smiled when she heard him cry. A healthy cry.

Anya had never cried...

"They're beautiful, my love," Max smiled and squeezed her hand tightly. Magda had smiled up at him, frowning when his smile turned to a look of pure concern. Her own smile turned to a frown as something felt wrong. Incredibly wrong.

She felt pain and heard her husband scream for someone to help. For anyone to help.

"Magda," she heard his voice, broken and afraid, but so distant and far away.

"Please..."


	2. Chapter 2

**Marya**

The birth certificates listed Django and Marya Maximoff as mother and father, something she had argued with Max over at length. The boy and girl had already lost their mother. It wasn’t right that they would lose their father on the very same day. 

She had heard it said that people changed once they had children. That the love for a child was immediate and unmatched.

But she could see it in Max’s eyes each time he looked at the boy. 

Marya had never seen a hatred like that in her life.

She had been the first to hold Pietro, a pathetic, tiny thing. Helpless. He hadn't cried as she’d picked him up and held him close, gently rocking him back and forth. 

She glanced at her husband, holding the girl, his jaw clenched, his shoulders rigid. 

Why should he not be angry?

Max had left them with two children and an official document listing them as their own.

They had not seen him since.

The boy stirred in her arms, and Marya sat with him, her mind still struggling to process all that had happened these past several hours. “What do we do?” she asked, her voice soft. Her eyes rose to study Django, staring down at the girl in his arms. 

She watched as he shook his head and sat beside her. The girl in his arms stirred and cried while the boy remained still. Had she been unable to feel his tiny breaths, Marya would have wondered if he had died along with his mother.

“What can we do?” Django turned to face her. “Abandon them? Find Max and demand he take them?”

“He’s overwhelmed,” Marya responded. “He made a rash decision and…”

“And he left them,” his voice rose. Pietro’s eyes snapped open, and Wanda’s cries grew louder. Django shook his head and glanced between the newborns. “They don’t stand a chance with him.”

“Max is a good man.”

“Good men do not abandon their helpless children.”

Marya sighed and hugged Pietro closer. He stared up at her with a curious expression, and Marya could not help but to think how much he looked like his father. A sound caught in his throat, and he began to cry.

“Hush, little one,” she soothed to no avail.

“We raise them,” Django said finally. “As our own. They will be better off never knowing of that man.”

The girl finally settled, and Marya breathed a sigh of relief. “He’ll be back for them,” she spoke, her voice barely above a whisper. “Mark my words, Django. He’ll be back.”

* * *

Adjusting to life with newborns was harder than she had expected, not that she had expected it to be an easy affair. Pietro would cry the second Wanda stopped, and Marya was struggling to remember the last time she had had a full night's sleep.

Fatherhood suited Django.

The twins were warming to him far sooner than they had to Marya, at least, and always calmed sooner when in his arms.

She lay in bed beside her husband, her head resting on his chest. The twins had finally gotten to sleep, and she hoped they would stay asleep, at least for a few hours, though she knew it was only a matter of time before one of them woke.

Django stroked her hair, and she glanced up at him. "What's wrong?" he asked, his voice soft and kind.

She sighed and shut her eyes tightly. "They don't like me," she spoke at last, her voice barely above a whisper.

"They're only a few days old," Django reminded gently.

Marya shook her head and rolled onto her side, facing away from him. "They need their mother."

"You are their mother."

"Magda would know what to do."

Magda had always known what to do. She had been one of the strongest women Marya had ever met. She would have been a wonderful mother to Pietro and Wanda, infinitely better than Marya could ever hope to be for them.

But Magda was gone and Max had left and Marya and Django were the only people in the world the twins had.

She had to be strong for them.

She had to have faith that time would improve things.

"What if they never like me?" she turned to face him, her eyes locking with his.

"They'll adore you," Django assured. "Why would they not?"

She heard a cry through the wall, and Django was the first to rise, just as he always was. She started to move, and he gently pushed her back down. "Sleep," he commanded. "I can handle them."

She nodded and pulled their blanket up to her shoulders. She could not understand how Django had taken this on so freely. They had discussed having children, but the timing had never been right. Though, she supposed, it would have to be right.

Pietro and Wanda had the world working against them. They needed someone in their corner. And fate had decided she and Django would be that team cheering them on.

She climbed out of bed and made her way into the twins' room. Lying down and moping about would do nothing for the situation. That much, at least, she knew.

She leaned in the doorway and watched as her husband held the boy close to his chest, smiling down at him and talking in soft, joyful tones. "Ah, little Pietro," he spoke to the boy. "Awake at all hours of the night. What are we to do with you?"

"He's only a few days old," Marya reminded, mimicking Django's tone from earlier.

She watched as he smiled and turned to face her. "So he is."

She crossed the room to stand beside her husband and looked down in the crib where Wanda lay sleeping, her little feet kicking as she dreamed. She looked so much like her mother, Marya could not help but think. She shut her eyes and took a breath and turned to face her husband once more. "I do not think we should stay here."

He furrowed his brow and held Pietro closer. "Why not?"

She shook her head and gently picked the girl up, cradling her close to her breast and tried to find a way to weave her thoughts into words. She was silent a moment, then spoke. “This was never meant to be their home,” she said, her tone firm. “They were meant to live in the house down the road, with their mother and father and the Eisenhardt name. They were meant to play with our children in our yard and visit here. This,” she gestured toward the room around them. “This was never meant to be theirs. This isn’t theirs. It isn’t ours.”

Django was silent a moment. He moved and sat in the second hand rocking chair they'd gotten the same they'd brought the twins home. "Then where would we go?" he asked, and Marya sighed. She had not considered where they might go. Just that they needed to. For the twins' sake and for their own.

"I don't know," she admitted. Wanda had woken, though she did not cry as she stared up at Marya, who did not smile, though she knew she should have. Django had always told her she would be a wonderful mother. But now?

She wasn't so sure.

"Somewhere  _ he  _ won't find them," Django said, and Marya nodded softly. Much as she wanted the twins to be raised by their birth parent, he had left them, hurt them in a way that would follow them the rest of their lives.

Django was right.

They would be better off without that man in their lives.

Though Marya knew Max had his ways.

If he wanted his children back, there was nothing in this world that could stop him.

Django stood and placed Pietro in the crib that Max had built. They would need new furniture too, when they left this place. Erase any and all traces that the boy and girl had ever been Max's.

Easier said than done, Marya thought. The boy would grow to be the spitting image of his father. And if Max ever returned?

How were they to explain the similarities to him?

"They have to know," she spoke, her voice soft, barely above a whisper as she placed Wanda next to the boy. She shut her eyes when she felt her husband's arm around her shoulders.

A heavy silence pressed down upon them, and Marya was unsure how to break it. She wondered what thoughts were rushing through her husband's mind. She was unsure she wished to know.

"Then we tell them," Django decided, and Marya nodded, something she could not quite place rushing through her. "We tell them of their father who left them. We tell them how much we love them every day. We raise them as our own. We love them as our own. We are their parents, my love. We were the instant Max left."

A thought gnawed at Marya, and she was unsure if she should speak it or not. But Django had always had a good read on her. Sometimes it seemed he knew her better than she knew herself. He was always one step ahead, always seemed to know what she needed before she herself did.

“What is it?” he asked, eyes filled with concern and a love so deep Marya wondered how she had ever come to deserve it.

“What if it isn’t enough?”

Django shut his eyes and wrapped his arms around her, resting his chin on the top of her head like he had when they were younger, when they were first seeing one another. When everything was new and exciting and uncertain.

He pressed a gentle kiss to her forehead.

“It will have to be.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Django**

It was never easy, leaving a home. Django could not help but reflect on that sentiment as he studied the empty room before him. They moved often, and yet it still never got any easier. Wanda was sound asleep in his arms, and he smiled down at her. Such a sweet girl.

Marya had handled the finer details, and Django was grateful for it. He never had enjoyed logistics and plans. It was much easier, he thought, to go where the wind took him. But now, it was not just him and his wife. They could not move as freely or on whims. Not when they had Pietro and Wanda to think about.

Pietro was... A challenge. He was in constant motion, and Django could never get him to sleep for longer than half an hour at a time. He was not good with him as Marya was. Though he was certain she felt the same about how he handled Wanda. Where Pietro would not settle for him, Wanda would not settle for her.

"Almost time to leave," Marya said from behind him. He nodded and slowly turned to face her. Her long hair was tied back, a rare occurrence, and Pietro lay sleeping in her arms.

"I'll never know how you get him to settle down," Django admitted and held Wanda closer. "I don’t think he likes me very much."

"I’m sure he loves you," Marya rolled her eyes and smiled down at the boy in her arms. "Please tell me we're doing the right thing."

Django was silent a moment and glanced down at his sleeping daughter. He had been unsure of Marya's decision at first, but had grown more certain in the choice as the weeks had gone on. She had been right. This home was not made for the twins. And they would not be safe so long as Max knew where to find them.

"We're doing the right thing," he assured.

"What if they don't like New York?" Marya asked, looking up at him.

Django sighed deeply and shut his eyes. The twins would not know any better. They were only a few weeks old. They would be happy there, he was sure of that much. They would have no memory of Transia.

He doubted she would ask the question she really wanted to ask.

_ What if we don't? _

"They will be fine, my love," he promised. "We will all be fine."

"What if..."

"Shh," he moved closer and rested his forehead against hers, smiling when he saw her smile. "We can't think in 'what if's'."

"Okay," she breathed and shut her eyes.

"Okay," he repeated softly. "We will all be okay."

* * *

Flying with a newborn, Django was sure, was not an easy task. 

But flying with two newborns?

He was beginning to feel it to be a Herculean task.

It was as if Pietro and Wanda fed off one another. When one started crying, the other started louder, and by the time they were at altitude, Django was beginning to wish he had given some sort of apology to the others in the cabin.

An announcement came on over the intercom, but Django understood not a word of it. English had always been a harsh language to him, and too difficult to learn. Too many rules and words that looked similar but sounded different.

Marya had picked up on it more easily than he, but even she could barely ask directions or say hello.

Ursari Balkan was his mother tongue. Romanian and Serbian he spoke with ease. Languages with clear rules that were easy to pick up and that he'd spoken all his life.

But English?

He did not understand why anyone spoke it.

A twinge of sadness pooled in his stomach as he stared down at Pietro, wriggling in his arms.

The twins would speak English as a first language, more than likely. They would remember nothing of Transia, of their home in the shadow of Mount Wungadore. They would never hear their father telling stories in Polish. The same stories passed through the Eisenhardt line for generations.

So much loss hung over the two. Loss they would never realize they had. Loss of a father who did not want them. Loss of a mother who would have loved them dearly. Loss of a culture they would never know because neither Django nor Marya knew how or what to pass down to them.

And loss for himself and his wife as well. Loss for the life that might have been. The family they might have had. Loss of Ana and Mateo who would never be.

He turned to glance at Marya, staring down at the girl in her arms. He could only imagine what was going through her head. So much change in so little time. No time to think in 'what if's' or 'should be's'.

Pietro's restlessness turned to tears, and Django snapped his attention back to the boy. Holding him close, bouncing him as much as he could in the small seat, trying not to disturb his neighbor, who was already tired of the twins' cries.

They were only babies.

They could not help that their ears were not popping or that the plane was crowded or that their father had abandoned them and their mother had died.

And should he and Marya even bother telling them of that?

Were they better off pretending the twins were their own?

Wanda could perhaps pass as their daughter.

But Pietro...

No one would ever deny Pietro belonged to Max.

Not if they saw them together.

Not if Pietro saw a photo of the man.

For Django could only hope to every god in existence that Pietro and Wanda never had to meet the man he had called friend. 

There had been a time they had been close as brothers.

Years of friendship erased in one afternoon.

Django could and had forgiven many things in his lifetime.

He doubted he could ever forgive this.

Pietro slowly started to settle in his arms, content with a pacifier and a tug of Django’s moustache.

“You’ll miss these days,” the woman to his right spoke, and Django turned to face her. They had not spoken for the hours they had been in the air. Django had been content to ignore both seatmates for the duration of the flight.

“You speak Serbian?” he asked, a smile on his face.

“A bit,” she answered, a sheepish smile on her face.

"They grow so fast," she commented, and Django smiled down at the boy in his arms. A boy with all odds stacked against him. "Blink and he'll be grown."

Django sighed deeply and smoothed the silver tuft of hair on the boy's head. How strange, he could not help but think. Magda and Max had both had dark hair. It was a shade unique to the boy.

Django could only hope Pietro would not be teased for it.

Enough of the world had been turned against his children.

He would be damned if he let anything else get in the way.

Pietro stared up at him, blue eyes bright and curious and innocent and not yet tarnished by the world that had thrown him to the wind.

"I know," Django spoke softly down to him, unsure of if the boy could even understand him. He figured he must. Babies, he doubted, would have made it this far if they did not understand at least a little. "Only a little longer."

He could hear Wanda crying from across the aisle, Marya's voice frustrated as she tried and failed to calm the girl.

Only a few weeks old, and Pietro was already the easier of the two. Neither could deny that. Only a few weeks old, and he seemed so eager to please.  _ He is just a baby... _

"The girl has fight," the woman smiled, and Django could not help but to return it. "And two loving parents to care for them."

"How do you know so much?" Django questioned.

"I raised two of my own." He watched as she glanced at Wanda and Marya, if only for a moment. "They will turn out just fine," she said. "They always do."

The intercom buzzed once more, and Django struggled to make out anything of what the pilot said.

"We're landing," the woman informed, and Django nodded.

Marya's voice rang in his head.

_ It isn't ours. It isn't theirs. _

New York would be. It had to be.

A new start away from the heartache and pain Max had caused even if the twins did not yet realize it. A new start away from a life that might have been and should have been for he and his wife.

_ They will be fine. _

They had to be.


End file.
